Keith Curle ahead of the weekend trip to Mansfield
Manager Keith Curle spoke to us about what will be another tough game as the squad prepares for the weekend trip to face Mansfield Town.“The first 20 minutes will be a case of not giving anything away,” he said. “Their manager [Steve Evans] has got Mansfield buoyant and they do try to exploit weaknesses from very early on in the game.
“You have to stand up to that and earn the right to play your football. Sometimes that means going like-for-like. It can be a hostile environment and a hostile touchline, but we won’t shy away from that.
“It’s definitely one that could be won or lost in that first 20 minutes. They’ll come out to whip the crowd up and they’ll want to be on the front foot. We’ll match that and then it will come down to which team can continue on the front foot the longest.”
“Steve is a manager I like and he’s had success and promotions. You have to be respectful of that. It’s very natural for him to be animated on the side of the pitch and I don’t mind that kind of thing at all.
“Some people don’t care for it but it doesn’t affect me at all. Both managers will have one eye on scoring goals so I think it will be an entertaining game.”
“A trip to Mansfield at this stage of the season will give us another example of how far we’ve come from when I first walked into the building,” he commented. “It’s the place where I started my managerial career and I think I’ve learned a heck of a lot as an individual and as a manager since then.
“As an experienced player who had played a lot of games you can start to look from the outside and think managing a team should be easy. It isn’t quite like that, as I’ve found out.”
“I’ve got some fantastic memories from my time there,” he added. “I emptied Mansfield as a town when we got to the play-off final in Cardiff. It was a ghost town that day because everybody was at the Millennium Stadium.
“It was a place where I learned lessons but I’m sure they’ll understand that I’m taking my team there to hopefully come away with a win.”
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